"Caper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... obscure county family took proceedings against the great Seaman for using their crest—a red dragon. Gloriana, however, retaliated by giving her bold Sir Francis an entirely new device showing the dragon cutting a most undignified caper on the bows of his ship. The effigies of three of these Drakes, with their wives in humble attitudes beside them, are to be seen in Musbury church, ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... flowers is tossed into the fire, a set speech is made; then the dance is resumed and the dancers sing in chorus the last words of the speech. At evening bonfires are kindled on the heights, and the boys caper round them, brandishing lighted torches drenched in pitch. Whoever jumps thrice across the fire will not suffer from fever within the year. Cart-wheels are often smeared with pitch, ignited, and sent rolling ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... and foggy for several weeks past. The pleasant prospect of the surrounding shores has been obscured a great portion of this month. The countenances of our companions partake of our dismal atmosphere. It has even sobered our Frenchmen; they do not sing and caper as usual; nor do they swing their arms about, and talk with strong emphasis of every trifle. The thoughts of home obtrude upon us; and we feel as the poor Jews felt on the banks of the Euphrates, when their ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... surrounded. We meet also, alas! with the usual crowd of beggars, the halt, the maimed, and the pseudo-blind, who are quickly left behind; nevertheless the naughty picturesque half-naked children, loudly screaming for soldi, caper in the dust alongside our carriage, until these little pests are out-stripped, but only to give way to other imps, equally naughty and unclothed, from Majori. Majori, nestling by the seashore amidst the enfolding mountains, appears to us a second ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... him, Daddy, won't you?" she said, a little anxiously, as Monarch executed a more than ordinarily uproarious caper. ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Archbishop of Dublin, having invited several persons of distinction to dine with him, had, amongst a great variety of dishes, a fine leg of mutton and caper sauce; but the doctor, who was not fond of butter, and remarkable for preferring a trencher to a plate, had some of the abovementioned pickle introduced dry for his use; which, as he was mincing, he called aloud to the company to observe him; "I here present ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... loving, But dizzily roving Through dreams to a grave. There below 'tis yet worse: Earth's flowers and its clay Roof a gloomier day, Hide a still deeper curse. Ring then, ye cymbals, enliven this dream! Ye horns shout a fiercer, more vulture-like scream! And frisk caper skip prance dance yourselves out of breath! For your life is all art, Love has given you no heart: So hurrah till you plunge ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... out of Mott Street Gibber out, Or dribble through bar-room slits, Anonymous shapes Conniving behind shuttered panes Caper and disappear... Where the Bowery Is throbbing like a fistula Back of ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... the wealthier Russian families. The finest, however, never leave China, being bought up by the Mandarins; for though the transit expenses add 3s. to 4s. per lb. to the value when sold in Russia, the highest market price in St. Petersburg is always under 50s. Among these scented teas are various caper teas, flavoured with chloranthus flowers and the buds of some species of plants belonging to the orange tribe, magnolia fuscata, olea flowers, &c. The Cong Souchong, or Ning-young teas, are chiefly purchased for the American market. Oolong tea ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... wishes to ride on the necks and shoulders of all flesh. The small enchanter nothing can withstand, no seniority of age, no gravity of character; uncles, aunts, grandsires, grandams, fall an easy prey: he conforms to nobody, all conform to him; all caper and make mouths, and babble, and chirrup to him. On the strongest shoulders he rides, and pulls the ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... this bright wonder of a house, began to caper and dance, and imperatively required that the whole breadth of sunshine should be stripped off its front, and given ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... First, here's yong Mr Rash, hee's in for a commoditie of browne paper, and olde Ginger, nine score and seuenteene pounds, of which hee made fiue Markes readie money: marrie then, Ginger was not much in request, for the olde Women were all dead. Then is there heere one Mr Caper, at the suite of Master Three-Pile the Mercer, for some foure suites of Peachcolour'd Satten, which now peaches him a beggar. Then haue we heere, yong Dizie, and yong Mr Deepevow, and Mr Copperspurre, and Mr Starue-Lackey the Rapier and dagger ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... that entangles all mens honesties, And lives like a Spider in a Cobweb lurking, And catching at all Flies, that pass his pit-falls? Puts powder to all States, to make 'em caper? Would he trust you? ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Is Vanity Fair? I want to be seen with the somebodies there. I've money and beauty and college-bred brains; Though my 'scutcheon's not spotless, who'll mind a few stains? To caper I wish in the chorus of style, And wed an aristocrat after a while So please tell me truly, and please tell me fair, Just how many miles ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall
... understand Turgenev. That Bazarov of his is a fictitious figure, it does not exist anywhere. The fellows themselves were the first to disown him as unlike anyone. That Bazarov is a sort of indistinct mixture of Nozdryov and Byron, c'est le mot. Look at them attentively: they caper about and squeal with joy like puppies in the sun. They are happy, they are victorious! What is there of Byron in them!... and with that, such ordinariness! What a low-bred, irritable vanity? What an abject craving to faire du bruit autour ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the line of the rest, and over toward where Teddy was standing, running up smoothly onto the gray beach, and out of it hopped a queer, ugly little dream, with pop eyes and big hands and feet. As soon as he found himself on shore he cut a caper ...
— The Counterpane Fairy • Katharine Pyle
... creature that the Giants loved him. The great Swift was gentle and sportive with him,(115) as the enormous Brobdingnag maids of honour were with little Gulliver. He could frisk and fondle round Pope,(116) and sport, and bark, and caper without offending the most thin-skinned of poets and men; and when he was jilted in that little Court affair of which we have spoken, his warm-hearted patrons the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry(117) ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... crossed the cool lawn, our spirits, which had drooped all day, like flags at half-mast, rose, and fluttered in the summer breeze, and we could not resist a caper or two as we ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... peanut-girl Like little Fauns began to caper: His hair was all in tangled curl, Her tawny legs were bare and taper; And still the gathering larger grew, And gave its pence and crowded nigher, While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew His pipe, and struck the ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... on the subject of the Golden Calf, and in this fashion: "Well, friends, in the midst of all this pillaloo, hands-across and down-the-middle, with old Aaron as bad as any and flinging his legs about more boldacious with every caper, I happens to glance up the hill, and with that I gives a whistle; for what do I see but a man aloft there picking his way down on his heels with a parcel under his arm! Every now and then he pulls up, shading his eyes, so, like as if he'd a lost his bearin's. I glances across to Aaron, ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... bright mornings to stroll leisurely out on to the farm in my dressing-gown, with a cigar in my mouth, and watch those innocent little lambs as they danced gayly o'er the hillside. Watching their saucy capers reminded me of caper sauce, and it occurred to me I should have some very fine eating when they grew up ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... that girls are crazy over hoof-shaking these days, and I suppose it's easy to go on from there into a general state of plumb lunacy," commented Old Mull, with disgust. "You show you ain't really in love with her, young man. You'd never allow her to cut up this caper if ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... caper, You've got a paper And I've got a widget of string. You be the army And let nothing harm me For I am the captain ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... reefed and the nets are drawn, And, over his pot of beer, The fisher, against the morrow's dawn, Lustily maketh cheer; He mocks at the winds that caper along From the far-off clamorous deep— But we—we love their lullaby song ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... galop, and polka —is in vogue. The Pole is known by his violent dancing; "he strikes and flutters like a cock, he capers in the air, he kicks his heels up to the stars." There is heartiness in the dancing of the Swedes and Danes, there is mettle in their heels, but no people caper like the Poles. The Russians and the Americans dance the best. They are the elegant dancers of the ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... 'I thought I should find you here, and so I did not call at your office, Wentworth. Ah,' he cried, looking round, 'this is the proper caper! These offices look even better than I thought they would. I just got back this morning,' he ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... was far from being a pleasure that afternoon; the boys ran so fast that it quite put her out of breath to keep up with them; and then every little while Arthur would cut some caper that made her tremble for the watch; answering her entreaties that he would either give it into her care or walk along quietly, with sneers and taunts, and declarations of his determination to do just exactly as he pleased, and ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... a pippin grow upon a crab, A damson on a black-thorn.—[Aside.] How greedily she eats them! A whirlwind strike off these bawd farthingales! For, but for that and the loose-bodied gown, I should have discover'd apparently The young springal cutting a caper in ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... often comes like that. Do you see how she's beginning to caper? So, there! Softly, softly!" he cried, as though he were talking to a horse. A spirt of water had jerked over the ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... a member of that class. It was a Saturday afternoon, and my companion and I had been wondering how we could raise enough cash to go to town for dinner and a little harmless revel. To shove those books into a suitcase and hasten to Philadelphia by trolley was the obvious caper; and Leary's famous old bookstore ransomed the volumes for enough money to provide an excellent dinner at Lauber's, where, in those days, the thirty-cent bottle of sour claret was considered the true, the blushful Hippocrene. But ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... holy John Wanamaker, who once announced in the Philadelphia papers that "Parisian thoughts are sewn in our underwear." With such lingerie I should imagine that "call again" garters would be the proper caper. Such a combination would suggest the patent medicine certificate of the happy husband who joyfully testified that "My wife was so nervous that I could not sleep with her, but after taking two bottles of your remarkable, etc., ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... She has left me in a lonesome mood; She has left my board, She has took my bed, She has gave away my meat and bread, She has left me in spite of friends and church, She has carried with her all my shirts. Now ye who read this paper, Since she cut this reckless caper, I will not pay one single fraction For any debts of her contraction. LEVI ROCKWELL. East ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... up a store against days of famine," said Tom, calmly. "Some days the pantry is awfully bare; and Kate, too, has a caper of hiding the victuals. I call that a plaguey mean trick—when a fellow's hungry! I clear the pan when I do find it, to ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... foot went down, and Kitty felt so glad about it that she tried to be pleasant, fearing some new caper of those dreadful shoes. She began to see how they worked, and thought she would try if she had any power over them. So, when one of the children wanted his ball, which had bounced over the hedge, she said kindly,—"Perhaps I can ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... confidence that his beloved one wanted to borrow six reals on a petticoat which she had bought. He gave her all that he had, which amounted to only four reals, and she gave him in exchange her lady's blessing, saying that with it went many kisses. As she left him, he said, she had cut a caper and had sprung fully two yards ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... first the old hag grumbled. To smooth her down Carmen gave her a couple of oranges and a handful of sugar-plums, and let her have a taste of wine. Then she hung her cloak on her back, and led her to the door, which she fastened with a wooden bar. As soon as we were alone she began to laugh and caper like a lunatic, singing out, 'You are my rom, I'm ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... lips twitched humorously. "Neither has it reference to any superior power. I wouldn't give one single round penny, providing I had it, to be able to whistle and have a thousand of my fellows dance to the tune—against their wishes. If I could whistle so sweetly or so enchantingly that they'd caper nimbly because they wanted to, because the contagion was irresistible, then—" The whimsical look passed as suddenly as it had come. "Pleasure with me, I think," he continued soberly, "means appreciation by my fellow-men, in big things and in little things. ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... were fools enough to come near—scampering back to the cover of the line, laughing and joking as if the whole were sport. I saw one—when his wrist was shattered by a shot, and he couldn't fire—take a comrade on his back and caper away like a horse, just to tempt the Germans to come out of their lines. It was with these blessed youths I was now to serve, for the Tambour of the Marboeuf was drowned in crossing the Sambre a few days before. Well, we passed the river safely, and, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... still in our places, except my companion John Ovy, who sat next to me. But he being of a profession that approved Peter's advice to his Lord, "to save himself," soon took the alarm, and with the nimbleness of a stripling, cutting a caper over the form that stood before him, ran quickly out at a private door, which he had before observed, which led through the parlour into the gardens, and from thence into an orchard; where he hid himself in a place so obscure, and withal so convenient for his intelligence ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... her downstairs every morning, and upstairs every night. She would clasp me round the neck and laugh, the while, as if I did it for a wager. Jip would bark and caper round us, and go on before, and look back on the landing, breathing short, to see that we were coming. My aunt, the best and most cheerful of nurses, would trudge after us, a moving mass of shawls and pillows. Mr. Dick would not have ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... writing for the acute monkish apprehension of the 13th century, did not deem it necessary to insert—I have hoped at least partially to liberate the lurking devil of humor from his fetters, letting him caper, not, certainly, as he does in the Latin, but as he probably would have done had his creator written in English. In preserving the metre and double rhymes of the original, I have acted from the same reverent ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... hand and began to run. There was a little rise in the ground a hundred yards away, with a clump of leafy ferns to shade it. They reached it as other half-naked, wholly mad human forms burst out of the jungle to yell and caper and make derisive and ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... trim a large striped bass, cut two incisions across the back, tie in a circle, and boil slowly in salted and acidulated water for forty minutes. Drain, pour over a Caper Sauce, garnish ...
— How to Cook Fish • Olive Green
... ran like a gust through the cloister of Stephen's mind, shaking into gay life limp priestly vestments that hung upon the walls, setting them to sway and caper in a sabbath of misrule. The forms of the community emerged from the gust-blown vestments, the dean of studies, the portly florid bursar with his cap of grey hair, the president, the little priest with feathery hair who wrote devout verses, the squat ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... him. She was ever light of foot, and, as she said afterwards, "would have danced her life out but she'd give the poor young gentleman a chance." Long and vigorously did Dan Sheeny advance, retire, curvette, and caper. The whiskey and exertion at length overcame him, and he left the lady sole mistress of the floor. By this time murmurs had again arisen, and all eyes were turned upon the intruder, who had been intently engaged observing the dancers. It was an accomplishment for which he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... and longing for someone to dip them in. All the release that Christ preached to men is being smothered in something worse than Judaism. We love chains, and when they are removed we either turn and put them on again, or else caper like mad things because we have cast them off. Freedom is still as distant as ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... show you it at the steaming out, upon deck, arrogant and heroic as it was, forming a glory round that handsome Tarasconian head. Next would I show you it at the harbour-mouth, when the bark began to caper upon the waves; I would depict it for you all of a quake in astonishment, and as though already experiencing the preliminary qualms of sea-sickness. Then, in the Gulf of the Lion, proportionably to the nearing the open sea, where the white caps heaved harder, ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... And of new policies deem yourself shaper; If at the world you're a green-gosling gaper, Or of old "JUNIUS," juvenile aper; Bumptious Scotch Duke, or irate Irish Draper, Crammed with conceit, which must publicly caper; Angry old woman, or frivolous japer; Thraso or termagant, Tadpole or Taper, To blow off your steam, or your gas, or your vapour, There's one fool-loved fashion—'tis ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... towel. Dust a cloth with flour and wrap the leg up with it. Put it into a kettle of boiling water and simmer gently 20 minutes to every pound; add salt when the leg is nearly done. When cooked remove the cloth carefully, garnish with parsley and serve with caper sauce. Save the liquor in which it was boiled ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... face Propped in the pillow. Breathe silent, lofty lime, Your curfew secrets out in fervid scent To the attendant shadows! Tinge the air Of the midsummer night that now begins, At an owl's oaring flight from dusk to dusk And downward caper of the giddy bat Hawking against the lustre of bare skies, With something of th' unfathomable bliss He, who lies dying there, knew once of old In the serene trance of a summer night When with th' abundance of his young bride's hair Loosed on his breast he lay and dared not ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... are instances on record where this knowing creature has sprung the trap by dropping a stick upon the pan, afterwards removing the suspended bait to enjoy it at his leisure. His movements are as lithe and subtile as those of a snake, and when "cornered" there is no telling what caper that cunning instinct and subtlety of body will not lead him to perform. When pursued by hounds he has been known to lead them a long chase at full speed up to the crest of a hill: here he leaps a shrub, swiftly as an arrow, and landing on the ground on the opposite ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... grown stiffer since, and Mayors and Marquises are no longer wont to caper about the streets of great cities in the sportive abandon of a festival dance; in those days it seems not to have abated a jot of ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... then on many a car you'll see A broomstick plain as plain can be; On every stick there's a witch astride, The string you see to her leg is tied. She will do a mischief if she can, But the string is held by a careful man, And whenever the evil-minded witch Would cut come caper, he gives a twitch. As for the hag, you can't see her, But hark! you can hear her black cat's purr, And now and then, as a car goes by, You may catch a gleam from ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... knew 'twas the reg'lar program to kill the fatted calf when the prodigal got home, but I see now it's the proper caper to fat up the prodigal to take the critter's place. No, no, Rachel, I'd like fust-rate to eat another bushel or so to please you, but somethin'—that still, small voice we're always readin' about, or somethin'—seems to tell me 'twouldn't be good jedgment. . . . Um-hm. . . . 'Twouldn't be good ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... are; this is my party. Before the finish of the dance I'm going to see if some of those sneaks out yonder, lyin' so snug, won't like to step right out and do a caper with me!" ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... discourse is wont to court his hobby abroad and at home, in his chamber makes a set speech to his greyhound, desiring that most fair and amiable dog to grace his company in a stately galliard; and if the dog, seeing him practise his lusty points, as his cross-point back-caper, chance to bewray the room, he presently doft's his cap, most solemnly makes a low leg to his ladyship, taking it for the greatest favour in the world that she would vouchsafe to leave her civet-box or her sweet ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... to the Queen, and she will list to me. I'll not smirk and caper like St. Ouen's; I'll bear me like a man not speaking for himself. I'll speak as Harry her father spoke—straight to the purpose. . . . No, no, no, I'm not to be wheedled, even by a Pawlett, and you shall not ask me. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Meg. Curved open to the river-reach is seen A country merry-making on the green. Fair space for signal shakings of the leg. That little screwy fiddler from his booth, Whence flows one nut-brown stream, commands the joints Of all who caper here at various points. I have known rustic revels in my youth: The May-fly pleasures of a mind at ease. An early goddess was a country lass: A charmed Amphion-oak she tripped the grass. What life was that I lived? The life of these? Heaven keep ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... aware of this; and, without troubling to invent a transition, he ceased his jeremiads, leapt to his feet, cut a sort of agile caper before Hortense' eyes and cried, in a ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... wishes of the boys were consulted, and each one as nearly fitted to the place he occupied as possible. Jane said, when they first began to multiply, the care troubled her some; but she began to talk to herself, and to say: "There now, don't be foolish enough to notice every little caper of them boys," and then, she said: "I began to practise what I preached to myself. It worked first-rate, for I give over watchin' 'em, and we get ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... of its owner, she sat peaceably down, and saw Thorpe sit down by her. Everything being then arranged, the servant who stood at the horse's head was bid in an important voice "to let him go," and off they went in the quietest manner imaginable, without a plunge or a caper, or anything like one. Catherine, delighted at so happy an escape, spoke her pleasure aloud with grateful surprise; and her companion immediately made the matter perfectly simple by assuring her that it was entirely ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... sneak back to us after a jolly caper in the open—a few timid ones, or snobs of sorts—thrifty, perhaps, or otherwise material, or cautious. But that's about all we get as husbands in these devilish days of general feminine bouleversement. And it's ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... we will dine upon the shore? Is it not that they suppose, what is certainly true, that a dinner upon the shore is of all others most delicious? Not by reason of the waves the sea-coast would be content to feed upon a pulse or a caper?—but because their table is furnished with plenty of fresh fish. Add to this, that sea-food is dearer than any other. Wherefore Cato inveighing against the luxury of the city, did not exceed the bounds of truth, when he said that at Rome a fish was sold for ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... came in, followed by Fair-Star, who began to plunge and caper at the sight of his mistress. Agnes looked keenly at Mrs. Harrington's flushed face; but, the covert smile, dawning on her lip, vanished, as she saw Ralph in the chair his mother had abandoned, bending over Lina; who sat upon the ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... with a knife and fork more properly than many children who are thought to be carefully trained, and liked, while eating, to cover her face with her napkin, and then uncover it with a cry of joy. Turnips were her favorite food; and, when a lady of the palace showed her one, she began to run, caper, and cut somersaults, forgetting entirely the lessons of modesty and decency her professor had taught her. The Empress was much amused at seeing the baboon lose her dignity so completely under the influence ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... Look at the stars— Jupiter, Ceres, Uranus, and Mars, Dancing quadrilles; caper'd, shuffl'd and hopp'd. Heavenly bodies! this ought ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... like to step on the cat's tail. He knew by experience that a cat is apt to claw anybody well who ventures on such a caper; but the little Goody laughed out, and stepping on it herself, ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... making a virtue of necessity, wisely made the best of the matter. On learning that his son was actually married without his knowledge, the only remark he made was this: "What could have induced Ben to cut up such a caper as to go and get married without my leave; it must have been the weather, nothing else," and as if he had settled the question to his own satisfaction he was never heard to allude to the matter again. Years passed away, till one day the tidings reached us that Uncle Ephraim was dangerously ill. ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... cried the master-player, savagely clapping his hand upon his poniard,—"why, I am going to do with thee just whatever I please. Dost hear? And, hark 'e, this sort of caper doth not please me at all; and by the whistle of the Lord High Admiral, if thou triest it on again, thy life is not worth ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... flings himself on the old gentleman's neck; throws up his hat; cuts a caper; defies the waiting-maid; and refers ...
— The Lamplighter • Charles Dickens
... sorrowing; While we've a fiddle we gayly will dance; Supper we've none, nor can we go borrowing; Dance and forget is the fashion of France. Long live gay jollity! 'Tis a good quality— Caper all, sing all, ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... poplar, walnut, evergreen oak, and a large plantation of olive: the river sometimes smiled with the fringe of oleander. We halted for a time under a wide-branching platanus at the end of a bridge, between the masonry of which grew bunches of the caper plant, then in blossom of white and lilac, and at the piers of which grew straggling blackberry brambles and wild fig-trees in picturesque irregularity, while the water bubbled and gurgled over a pebbly bed or fragments ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... Big Wolf," went on Tom. "Dance! Dance or Big Wolf shoot!" And the fun-loving Rover set the pace in a mad, caper that would have ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... leap, jump, hop, spring, bound, vault, saltation^. ance, caper; curvet, caracole; gambade^, gambado^; capriole, demivolt^; buck, buck jump; hop skip and jump; falcade^. kangaroo, jerboa; chamois, goat, frog, grasshopper, flea; buckjumper^; wallaby. V. leap; jump up, jump over the moon; hop, spring, bound, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... rear, was a fearful cave or yawning mouth filled with smoke and flames, and denoting hell. From this ever and anon would issue the howls and shrieks of the damned. Amidst hideous yellings, devils would rush forth and caper about and snatch hapless souls into this pit to their doom.46 The actors, in their mock rage, sometimes leaped from the pageant into the midst of the laughing, screaming, trembling crowd. The dramatis personoe included many queer characters, such as a "Worm of ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... the rank of trees, the most important are the lentisk (Pistachia lentiscus), the bay, the arbutus (A. andrachne), the cypress, the oleander, the myrtle, the juniper, the barberry, the styrax (S. officinalis), the rhododendron, the bramble, the caper plant, the small-leaved holly, the prickly pear, the honeysuckle, and the jasmine. Myrtle and rhododendron grow luxuriantly on the flanks of Bargylus, and are more plentiful than any other shrubs in that region.[233] Eastern Lebanon has abundant scrub of juniper and barberry;[234] ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... not angry at all. I am glad to see you." She held out her hand. "So is Leo, too—only see him caper." ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... to caper with a sort of decorous hilarity before their teacher. " Look at the sausage, professor. Did you ever see such sausage " Isn't it salubrious " And see these other things, sir. Aren't they curious " I shouldn't wonder if they were ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... lay thinking of you, spending your nights up here all alone, and no one to look after you. I wondered what you could be doing and what might be happening to you. I said to myself at once, 'Either this is a coincidence or the caper sauce.' But I made sure it was you. I felt I MUST do something anyhow, and up I came just as soon as I ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... are driven through the streets, often attended by the owner's family. The mother milks for the passing customers, the father fetches it all lovely and foaming and warm to your cab, and the pretty, big-eyed children caper around you, begging for a "macaroni" instead ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... Gibault, who had issued from his hiding-place and had witnessed Redhand's successful shot, began to caper and dance and shout in the exuberance of his glee. Most men are apt to suffer when they give way to extravagant action of any kind. Gibault forgot that he was on the edge of an overhanging bank. The concussion with which he came to ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Ipsden, he shocked the punctilious old gentleman by dancing on the dining-table to the accompaniment of a fiddle, which he scraped delightedly. Dancing, indeed, was another of his diversions, and, in spite of the fact that he was a fellow of Magdalen and a D.C.L. of Oxford, he was always ready to caper and to display the ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... were marched, in the first instance, to the trader's barracoons, where they could be sorted and regain some of their strength. Harry and I were paying all the attention we could to the wounded men, who, enjoying the advantage of fresh provisions, were quickly recovering their health. Caspar Caper, the man who seemed to be the most grateful to Harry and me, was quite himself again, and was certainly fit to return on board, but he begged hard that we would ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... goodness, I feel like nine dollars' worth of dog meat hanging out of a hospital window. Was you at the ball, also? I mean did you attend last night's festivities? Ah, me! The joy and laughter of yesterday is sure the hangover of today. I thought I would caper down to the ball last night and just see how the other half lived, and instead of being a mere obtrusive observer I developed into what you might term the main event of the evening. You see it was this way. The ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... and pricking their sides ridiculously enough; and it makes one laugh to see that some of them are not provoked by it not to run at all, but set about plunging, in order to rid themselves of the inconvenience, instead of driving forward to divert the mob; who leap and shout and caper with delight, and lash the laggers along with great indignation indeed, and with the most comical gestures. I never saw horses in so droll a state of degradation before, for they are all striped or spotted, or painted of some colour to distinguish them each from other; and nine or ten often start ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... by a troop of horse, who came prancing onward with such a sound of trumpets and trampling of hoofs, as might have startled Don Quixote himself; while an old toper, of inveterate ill habits, uplifted his black bottle and took off a hearty swig. Meantime the Merry-Andrew began to caper and turn somersets, shaking his sides, nodding his head, and winking his eyes in as life-like a manner as if he were ridiculing the nonsense of all human affairs, and making fun of the whole multitude beneath ...
— The Seven Vagabonds (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... rich, meets with a privateer (not so strong but that she might fight him and perhaps get off); the captain calls up his crew, tells them, "Gentlemen, you see how it is; I don't question but we may clear ourselves of this caper, if you will stand by me." One of the crew, as willing to fight as the rest, and as far from a coward as the captain, but endowed with a little more wit than his fellows, replies, "Noble captain, we are all willing to ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... reared an' pitched an' caper'd, only ez a mule kin pitch, Tel he flung Sam clean f'om off him, landed him squar' in ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... doctor, giving the table a rap with a ruler that made the globe tremble. Walter was frightened. "Order! This is a nice caper during study-hours." ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... as if he had cut some irrelevant caper. "Then if they don't sell their ancestors where in the world are ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... return we landed at Caper Point near the bottom of the bay; where, on taking some bearings, a considerable local magnetic attraction was detected, for the needle of the theodolite was nearly eight degrees in error. Whilst I was thus employed Mr. Cunningham, who was my companion ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... bends o'er his book, Bright pictures of profit delighting to draw, O'er his shoulders with large cipher eyeballs I look, And down drops the pen from his paralyzed paw! When the Premier lies dreaming of dear Waterloo, And expects thro' another to caper and prank it, You'd laugh did you see, when I bellow out "Boo!" How he hides his brave Waterloo head in the blanket. When mighty Belshazzar brims high in the hall His cup, full of gout, to the Gaul's ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the trewth?" cried Aunt 'Mira. "I wish I was with 'em myself. I read in the Fireside Fav'rite that 'tain't considered a proper caper, anyway, for a young gal to go anywhere ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... and Horace, dined with us. Your brother was more extraordinary than ever. He would get up suddenly, and cut a caper; rubbing his hands every time that the thought of your fresh laurels came ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol II. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... at the button in question, "why, that's just a little——" There was a faint wail from the depths of the ulster. Jimmy began to caper about with elephantine tread. "Oochie, coochie, oochie," he ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... let off whistles of astonishment, and continued on their paths. A man dozing on a dock aroused and began to caper. ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... me go with you, father! Oh, I am glad, father." And the boy began to caper and dance, to go down on all fours, and leap about the floor ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... given to these faithless mandatories, it is because they are soon to be put out. On the premature report that the Convention is going to break up, people accost each other in the street, exclaiming, "We are rid of these brigands, they are going at last... People caper and dance about as if they could not repress their joy; they talk of nothing but the boy, (Louis XVIII. confined in the Temple), and the new elections. Everybody agrees on excluding the present deputies.... There is less discussion on the crimes which each has committed than on ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... out in company to visit the settlers, and the birds salute us on our way, and the air comes cool and fragrant to our lips. We pause and survey the sugar camp, and a herd of fleet deer caper by, leading a troop of frolicking fawns, and seeming to send back the word, "see our darlings." Casting your eyes aloft to the top of that tall maple, you discover a bee tree, and behold numberless diligent little beings going and coming ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... power; To sing how Nannie lap and flang, (A souple jade she was and strang), And how Tam stood, like ane bewithc'd, And thought his very een enrich'd: Even Satan glowr'd, and fidg'd fu' fain, And hotch'd and blew wi' might and main: Till first ae caper, syne anither, Tam tint his reason a thegither, And roars out, "Weel done, Cutty-sark!" And in an instant all was dark: And scarcely had he Maggie rallied. When out ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... Baltimore. With this, I cut down the saplings by which my oxen were entangled, and again pursued my journey, with my heart in my mouth, lest the oxen should again take it into their senseless heads to cut up a caper. My fears were groundless. Their spree was over for the present, and the rascals now moved off as soberly as though their behavior had been natural and exemplary. On reaching the part of the forest where ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... chicken broth with Italian paste; fillet of English sole, sauce tartare; spaghetti or ravioli; escallop of veal, caper sauce; French peas with butter; roast chicken with chiffon salad; ice cream or fried cream; assorted fruits and cakes; demi tasse. Wine ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... had ceased to caper on the pinnacle upon the cessation of the firing, which had given occasion for his whimsical exercise, continued, as perched on the top of an exposed cliff, too conspicuous an object to escape the sharp eyes of the Highlanders, when they had time to look a ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... leaned his rifle against a tree, spat on his hands, cut a clumsy caper in air, and gave tongue in a yell that should have been heard by ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... he said. "Nobody has ridden him but you. I broke him myself. I knew him from the time he was born. I knew every bit of him, every trick, every caper, and I would have staked my life that it was impossible for him to do a thing like this. There was no warning, no fighting for the bit, no previous unruliness. I have been thinking it over. He didn't fight for the bit, for that matter. He wasn't unruly, nor disobedient. There ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... the head of the class. What d'you know about that for luck! My first, too—and only the third magazine I sent it to! (He cuts a joyful caper.) ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... social caper with this hotel's name on her cards, won't she?" broke in Haines, as he led Cullen to a seat to await the expected legislator, whose train ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... shooting as vigorously and quickly as before; some of their arrows fell among the horsemen, who were sumptuously equipped, and, killing and wounding many, made them caper and fall among the Genoese, so that they were in such confusion they could never rally again. In the English army there were some Cornish and Welshmen on foot who had armed themselves with large knives. These, advancing through the ranks of the men-at-arms and archers, who ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... wide awake than it is in and around this city: therefore, Mr. James Caper, animal painter, determined to repose there ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... Should greet your glad statement with wild jubilation! Well, the country does not get too often a chance Of an honest excuse for a genuine dance, And would step it quite gladly, if only assured It could once from old dodges feel safely secured, Being certain its guns, before setting to caper, Do not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 29, 1890 • Various
... the Peter Ketley we knew best, the sad-eyed Peter with the feather of courage in his cap, the Peter who could caper and make you forget that his heart had ever been ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... out against more than the patient who lay in bed, confined in a straight jacket; and some were ready to make him desist; when the patient, immediately sitting up as a man agreeably surprised, attempted to caper with his arms in unison with the music; and on his arms being held, he evinced, by the motion of his head, the pleasure he felt. Sensible, however, of the effects of the violin, he was suffered by degrees to yield to the movement he was desirous ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... presence, interpreted by a vivid imagination, might have been regarded as an omen of impending misfortune. They stood on the outskirts of the wedding company, gazing on the scene apparently without an emotion of sympathy or interest. They were there, it seemed, to see what new caper the townspeople had concluded to cut, to regard it solemnly, and to regret it with grave faces when the lights were out and the fantastic procession had drifted ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris |
